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Wittenberg Tigers

Wittenberg has fielded a football team for 123 seasons. The four-overtime playoff thriller at Thomas More last season was the program’s 754th victory. Only Mount Union, the perennial national powerhouse, has more. Close to 90 freshmen football players showed up on Wittenberg’s campus Tuesday. An army of 160 Tigers will hold their first practice of the 2017 season Wednesday. They reported...

North Coast Athletic Conference football coaches voted Wittenberg the preseason favorite Thursday. The Tigers received six of 10 first-place votes. They finished 10-2 in 2016 and won the league championship with an 8-1 mark. Wittenberg has won the NCAC title outright or shared it in six of the last eight seasons. Wabash, which tied for second with Denison and DePauw last season at 7-2, received three...

The Wittenberg Tigers were were ranked 16th in the country in the
D3football.com preseason poll
released Monday. The Tigers received 204 points in the poll, six behind No. 15 UW-Platteville, and nine ahead of No. 17 Frostburg State. »RELATED: Witt recruiting class is Tigers’ biggest ever Defending national champion Mary Hardin-Baylor is No. 1. The Tigers finished...

Joe Fincham and his Wittenberg Tigers assistant coaches didn’t set out to break a recruiting record in 2017. The biggest freshman class in school history just kind of happened. “If I could put it in a bottle, I’d sell it,” Fincham said Friday. “I don’t think there’s a magic bullet.” The class numbers 89. The players come from eight states. Most are from...

Wittenberg University removed the interim tag from Kelly Mahlum’s title, and she will continue to coach the women’s basketball team in the 2017-18 season. She is the eighth head coach in school history. Wittenberg made the announcement Friday. Mahlum took over the program when Sarah Jurewicz went on maternity leave last season. The Tigers went 10-16 under Mahlum. Jurewicz will remain with...

Nine players will join the Wittenberg Tigers men’s basketball team as part of 2017 recruiting class, second-year head coach Matt Croci announced this week. All nine are from Ohio. The most intriguing name on the list is the only player who doesn’t have four years of eligibility remaining. Centerville High School grad Mitch Balser, a 6-foot junior guard, is a transfer from Wooster, Wittenberg&rsquo...

The Wittenberg University men’s golf team won its first national championship on Friday. The 10th-ranked Tigers edged Guilford College (Greensboro, N.C.) by two strokes (1,180-1,182) to win the NCAA Division III tournament at Mission Inn Resort and Club at Howey-in-the-Hills, Fla. Senior Garrett Brickley led Wittenberg with a runner-up finish in the 72-hole tournament. Brickley birdied the final...

The Wittenberg Tigers have a new offensive coordinator, and he’s a familiar name for anyone who has been following local football for the last decade. Wittenberg and Southeastern High School graduate Reed Florence takes the helm of the offense, replacing Kevin Hoyng, who returned to his alma mater, the University of Dayton, as the passing game coordinator after three seasons running the Wittenberg...

A Springfield native considered a pioneer in women’s athletics and who had a lengthy career at Wittenberg University has died. Betty J. Dillahunt, 95, was described as a “legend as a youngster” in the city in a time when women weren’t encouraged to participate in sports, said Sarah Jurewicz, Wittenberg associate athletic director, senior women’s administrator and head...

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights has reached an agreement with Wittenberg University after finding that the university’s handling of complaints arising from reports of sexual assault violated federal law. The probe, under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, was based on complaints filed in July 2011 and April 2013, alleging that the university failed...

Wittenberg basketball coach Matt Croci has already turned the page from his first season at the helm to his second season. That means he and his assistant coaches will be all over the place recruiting at high school tournament games this month. Croci took some time Thursday, however, to look back at the season that ended Feb. 24 with a 77-68 loss to Ohio Wesleyan in the North Coast Athletic Conference...

The Wittenberg Tigers recorded the most impressive victory of the Matt Croci era so far, upsetting No. 9 Denison 71-70 in Granville on Saturday. Shawnee grad Jaelin Williams, a Wittenberg senior, blocked a shot by Denison’s Bret Woolard at the buzzer. Williams led the Tigers with 23 points on 8-of-23 shooting. He had a team-high eight rebounds, four steals and two blocks. Wittenberg trailed...

Wittenberg hoped to turn its North Coast Athletic Conference title hopes around in a game against rival Wooster on Saturday night at Pam Evans Smith Arena. Instead, Wooster ran away in the second half and handed the Tigers a 70-55 loss. The loss drops Wittenberg to 4-4 in the NCAC and 10-5 overall. The Tigers hadn’t lost a league game by more than four points before Saturday. “I thought...

Wittenberg Tigers coach Matt Croci explained his experience with the Wittenberg-Wooster rivalry this week to his players. When he played at Wittenberg from 1991-94, the Tigers and Scots were new to the North Coast Athletic Conference. The rivalry had yet to take off, but even then showed signs of being something special. “Playing in it, coaching in it, or watching it, if you have a connection...

Wittenberg University and men’s basketball coach Matt Croci will host Community Day on Thursday at a 3 p.m. game vs. Heidelberg at Pam Evans Smith Arena. All students — elementary, middle school, high school and college — get in the doors for free. The Tigers are 5-3 and 2-2 in the North Coast Athletic Conference. After losing 58-54 to DePauw and 72-68 in overtime to Denison in their...

Wittenberg Tigers senior Will Gingery was named to the American Football Coaches Association All-America Division III First Team on Monday as a placekicker. He’s the program’s first first-team All-American since defensive lineman Eddie Vallery in 2009. Gingery, a Bexley High School graduate, starred as a kicker and punter for the Tigers, who won the North Coast Athletic Conference...

Jaelin Williams caught the pass from Cody Phillippi. He passed on the shot for a half second and then stepped back and let it fly. The 3-pointer with 41 seconds left broke a 58-58 tie and propelled the Wittenberg Tigers to a 63-60 victory over the Capital Crusaders on Tuesday in Bexley. “Last year we would have lost that game for sure,” Williams said. “That was every game last year...

Wittenberg’s defense faced its most difficult test of the season Saturday. The Tigers held up for most of the first half, but Wisconsin-Whitewater’s big offensive line and balanced attack ended the Tigers’ season 37-9 in the second round of the NCAA Division III playoffs in Whitewater, Wisconsin. Wittenberg (10-2) was fifth in the nation this season in points allowed per game at...

Wittenberg proved a worthy road team last Saturday when it was one of three road teams to win one of the 16 first-round games of the Division III football playoffs. The Tigers were dramatic about it, defeating Thomas More in four overtimes. Can they do it again? “We’re really prepared to go up there and give all we’ve got,” said linebacker Terrance Crowe, a 2013 Springfield...

Joe Fincham and Taver Johnson were freshmen together — sort of — in 1990 with the Wittenberg Tigers. Fincham was a new assistant coach. Johnson was a freshman linebacker. On Friday, the two reunited in West Lafayette, Ind., as Fincham’s Tigers stopped at Purdue University to practice on the way to a noon game Saturday in the second round of the Division III playoffs at Wisconsin-Whitewater...

Matt Croci took the court for his first game as Wittenberg Tigers men’s basketball coach Friday with few jitters. He has been a head coach before after all. He led the Kenyon Lords for seven seasons. However, from 1993 to this past March, the Tigers were led by one man: Bill Brown. His tenure lasted so long it overlapped Croci’s playing career. He was a senior in Brown’s first year...

Wittenberg senior kicker Will Gingery has many milestones in his career. The preseason All-American has done it all, it seems — except hit a game-winner. On a snowy, windy Saturday afternoon at BB&T Field, Gingery was able to check that off his list after nailing a 37-yard field goal in the fourth overtime to give Wittenberg a 33-30 win over Thomas More in the first round of the NCAA Division...

The Wittenberg Tigers entered the 2016 season with one big question mark. Could they win with the first sophomore starting at quarterback since Aaron Huffman in 2007? Jake Kennedy has answered that. He threw 18 touchdown passes and seven interceptions, averaging 205.9 passing yards per game. He proved to be a capable runner, too, averaging 48.9 yards per game and scoring seven touchdowns. Entering...

Matt Croci wasn’t looking to get out of coaching when he left Kenyon in 2010 — especially after having had some success in a program with a long history of lean years. But his wife, Patrice, had a job opportunity in Florida that was too good to pass up. And Croci was willing to support her career and take on a new role in life. “For two years, I was a stay-at-home dad for our three...

Wittenberg senior linebacker Dustin Holmes and senior punter/placekicker Will Gingery received top honors from the North Coast Athletic Conference on Thursday. Holmes, a 2010 Tecumseh graduate, became the first Wittenberg player since defensive lineman Eddie Vallery in 2009 to win the Hank Critchfield Award as the league’s top defender. He made 90 tackles for a defense that allowed 9.6 points...

Coach Joe Fincham knows the drill when the Wittenberg Tigers find out their playoff opponent. He has guided the Tigers to the postseason 12 times in 21 seasons. “I usually get my head out of the toilet. Then we all say a prayer,” Fincham joked. “Then we get to the film. You start calling immediately to exchange film. Now that everything’s electronic transferred, technology...

Coach Joe Fincham often has a similar reaction anytime he sees the Wittenberg Tigers’ name pop up on the NCAA Division III playoff announcement show. Fifteen years ago, his Tigers were sent to Abilene, Texas, to play Hardin-Simmons in the first round. Wittenberg won that game, but it remains the worst-case scenario for travel. So when Fincham watched the selection show Sunday with his staff...

As far as days Ohio State wins by 59 points, this was not the best the Buckeyes have had, but all is not lost or decided. Here are seven thoughts stemming from the 11th week of college football: First thing’s first: On a day of chaos around the country, the Buckeyes made another college team look like a high school unit. They only play 12-15 games per year, so it’s important to stop and...